


Somewhere That Feels Safe

by Rymdunge



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Relativity Falls, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Grauntie Mabel, Grunkle Dipper - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, filbrick can suck a lemon, teen stan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 10:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17486588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rymdunge/pseuds/Rymdunge
Summary: Stan gets kicked out, and there's really only one place he can think to go. (aka, I'm self-indulgent and I want to protect Teen Stan.)





	Somewhere That Feels Safe

The sky was starting to brighten when Stan finally arrived at the Magical Cottage. He’d pressed through the last few hours of driving even though he was more tired than he’d even been in his life. Once he got to Oregon, there was no way he could stand sleeping in his car again. Not when he was so close.

That said, he still hesitated once he stood at the doorstep, smelling like shit and with everything he owned in the duffle bag hanging off his shoulder. Mabel and Dipper would be sleeping. He should wait until the morning had properly arrived. He should’ve called to tell them he was coming. Ask if it even was _okay_ for him to show up out of the blue like this.

He should go back to the car, catch a few hours of sleep before he bothered them.

But the thought of spending another night in the backseat of his car, when his destination was _right there_ , made him wanna throw up. So he knocked. Would they even hear him? Grauntie Mabel slept like the dead, and Grunkle Dipper always stayed up to work on his research until he basically collapsed into a coma.

“This had better not be Paul again,” called Mabel in her friendly-annoyed sing-song tone. “I’ve told you, we just weren’t meant to be, what with me being a wrinkly old human lady and you being a giant lizardman.” Hearing her voice made Stan’s eyes sting.

The light in the hall came on and the door opened. Mabel was holding her trusty monster-bashing driver club. She was wearing a sweater over her nightgown and her gray hair was in a loose braid.

“Stanley?” She adjusted her glasses, as though she might be seeing things.

“Hey, Grauntie Mabel.” Stan tried to smile, but it felt weird on his face. “I uh…” To his horror, he could feel tears well up in his eyes. He swallowed and kept grinning. “Can I stay here for a- a couple of days? Me and Ford-” His voice broke. He was just so fucking tired – so tired it _hurt_. “I know I should’ve called.”

Mabel pulled him into a hug, squeezing him tightly. “Of course you can stay here, silly boy. You know that.” Her sweater smelled like glue and chocolate and it made Stan think of summer.

He burrowed his face into her shoulder. “I messed up,” he sobbed.

Mabel hushed and rubbed his back. “We can talk about that later. You look dead on your feet. Are you hungry?”

Stan sniffed, trying to calm down. “Y’know me. I can always eat.”

“That’s my boy. C’mon, let’s get us some hot chocolate.”

Mabel made two of her ridiculous concoctions of chocolate, whipped cream and sprinkles, and a plate of glittery french toast for Stan. He told her about Ford’s project and their fight, and how it had ended with Stan thrown on his ass in the street. He could tell Mabel was getting angry as she heard what their dad had done, but she did her best to hide it.

“Mabel, why are you making toast at four in the morning? Go back to-” Dipper entered the kitchen, fully dressed and hair in the same kind of mess Ford’s got to after hours of running his fingers through it while thinking. “Hello, Stan.” Confusion slowly faded towards understanding. “Did you just get here? What’s happened?”

“Filbrick happened,” Mabel said, voice flat. Her hands tightened around her mug.

Dipper’s face darkened. “That miserable, heartless…” He grabbed the car keys off the hook on the wall and turned on his heel and made to leave the kitchen.

Mabel moved far quicker than you’d expect from a woman nearing 70. She grabbed the back of Dipper’s shirt, pulling him back. “Whoop, where do you think you’re going?”

Dipper sputtered. “I’m going to go give that bastard a piece of my mind.”

“Nope. You haven’t slept in the last, what, 27 hours? You’re not going anywhere, especially not _across the whole friggin’ country,_ are you crazy?”

Dipper looked caught. His lower jaw jutted out in a grumpy expression. “I have taken several naps. I’m perfectly fine.” The dark circles around his eyes told a very different story.

“Nobody’s driving anywhere tonight - today,” she amended after a look out the window. “Both of you are going to bed, or I’ll glitter bomb everything you love,” she said with a slightly scary smile.

Dipper looked ready to protest, but he knew better than anyone what kind of havoc one of Mabel’s glitter bombs could bring, especially on the sensitive materials in his study and lab. “I _will_ call them in the morning.”

Mabel finally let go of his shirt and patted his back. “I know you will.” She turned to Stan. “You just finish your food. I’ll go get the attic set up for you.”

The thought of sleeping in the same room he and Ford used to share, with all its happy memories, made Stan feel nauseous.

“Or not,” Mabel said, obviously spotting his discomfort. “How about the TV room?” Her smile was so kind and understanding that it almost made Stan weepy all over again.

Stan just nodded, shoving some toast into his mouth so he’d have an excuse not to speak. Mabel left and Dipper sat down in her empty seat. “You know you can stay here with us as long as you like, right? _Not_ as long as you _need_ to, but for as long as you want.”

Stan smiled, despite himself. “Yeah, I know.”

“And your father…” He trailed off, making a face like he’d sucked a lemon. “You can fill me in later, but no matter what happened, he was not justified in hurting you. That isn’t how you treat your kids, no matter what.”

Some part of Stan couldn’t help but think that Dipper might change his mind when he heard the full story. Him and Ford had always been close, and Dipper was really proud of all of Ford’s smarts.

Stan hunched over his plate. “Ford hates me.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true.”

Stan shook his head. “I fucked up. He’ll never want to see me again.”

Dipper laid a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “One mistake doesn’t suddenly undo a lifetime of good memories. Take it from someone who has had _plenty_ of fights with their sibling. Stanford loves you. Don’t sell him short. Don’t give up on him.”

He gave Stan’s shoulder an awkward but affectionate pat.

“Also, your dad’s the worst. I’ve been waiting for years to be able to say that to his face," he went on in a flat, rapid tone. "The only reason I haven’t yet is because I was worried he might not let the two of you visit anymore.”

Some part of Stan bristled at the insult to his dad. Dipper had never tried very hard to disguise the fact that he disliked Filbrick, but he’d restricted himself mostly to eye-rolls and grumbles. Mabel had done a better job, but once you got to know her, you’d easily recognise the hard edge that came into her cheerful, friendly tone whenever she talked to or about their father.

It had always made Stan uneasy whenever the older twins’ dislike of Filbrick flared up. You were supposed to look out for your family, no matter what. He’d lived by those words, and he’d liked how Dipper and Mabel seemed to live by them too. They forgave each other any time they’d had an argument. They forgave Ford when he put his foot in his mouth or accidentally aggravated some weird monster. They forgave Stan when he broke stuff or got himself in trouble.

Stan couldn’t count the number of times he’d messed up in ways that would earn him a whack over the back of the head and a month-long grounding at home, and Mabel and Dipper had just forgiven him without even punishing him.

The fact that they seemed to despise Filbrick made him wonder how close he himself was to the limit.

“Much as it pains me to admit it, Mabel’s right.”

“I always am!” called a voice from the TV room.

Dipper ignored her. “We all need to get some sleep before we deal with any of this.”

Stan finished his toast and put his mug and plate in the sink. The food had made him even more sleepy - despite the high sugar content - and his head ached from all the thoughts running circles around themselves inside his mind. A few hours of unconsciousness sounded real good right about now.

The TV room was the same as always, full of Mabel’s craft projects and Dipper’s nerd books and terrible sci-fi movies. Stan felt a surge of anger at how all the happy feelings and memories in this house had been ruined by what had happened between him and Ford. Now, all he could think about was how he’d never get to sit with Ford on the sofa watching boring local TV again. Or how they’d never be 12 again, sitting on the floor with all of Ford’s notes and theories strewn about them, trying to figure out the latest mystery of the weird town.

Mabel had gathered up a big pile of pillows and blankets and created a comfortable nest on the sofa. Just like she’d do whenever they had a movie night. Man, feelings fucking sucked.

Stan swallowed around the lump in his throat and settled on the sofa. Mabel went to sit at the game table, where some half-finished knitting was waiting for her.

“Aren’t you going to bed?” Stan wondered.

“Unlike you two, I actually sleep at night, so a couple of hours here or there aren’t going to do me any bad.” She paused for a moment before adding, “I know what it’s like sleeping alone when you’re used to sharing a room with another person.”

It hit Stan like a ton of bricks. That it really _would_ have sucked to lie alone in the dark, staring up at the ceiling that should be the bottom of Ford’s bunk. He hadn’t even had to realise that it was going to be a problem before Mabel tried to solve it for him.

“Shouldn’t you have a light on? Isn’t it bad for your eyes to work in the dark, or something?

Mabel made a dismissive raspberry noise. “I’m indestructible.”

Stan laid down and closed his eyes. But despite how bone-tired he was, sleep just did not want to take him. He adjusted himself over and over, tried punching the pillow into a better shape, added and removed blankets, but nothing helped.

“Does somebody need a cuddle?” Mabel had put her knitting back on the table, and was looking at him with kind, slightly sad eyes.

“Don’t you think I’m a bit too old for cuddles,” Stan muttered.

“‘Too old for cuddles’? What sort of silly-talk is that?”

Stan pressed his lips together in a hard line. His pride had taken a lot of punishment over the last few days, and he was so fucking tired and sad. That first night he’d cried himself to sleep thinking about how badly he wanted his mom to hug him and wondering if she ever would again (she _would_ ‘cause he was gonna make that money and prove them all wrong).

He sat up, moving to on one side of the sofa. Mabel came to sit next to him without him having to say anything. Stan wrapped both arms around her chubby middle and rested his head on her shoulder. She pulled one of the blankets over both of them, before curling one arm behind his shoulders and resting her head on top of his.

“I probably smell like shit.”

“Haha, yeah you do.”

It was like time had stood still in this space created in Mabel’s hugs. Stan remembered being small enough for Mabel to lift over her head. (If asked, she insisted that she still could, but he wasn’t ever gonna let her try and destroy her back. _Again.)_ He was almost taller than her now, and definitely heavier, and still he felt small and safe here. Like nothing could get to him. He sighed deeply, relaxing further into her warm arms.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Mabel mumbled into his hair. “I promise.”

“I hope so.”

“And I love you, and I always, always, always will.”

Stan sniffed. “If you want me to sleep you’re gonna have to stop blabbering at some point.”

Mabel laughed and ruffled his hair. “Good night, Stanley.”

“Good night, Grauntie.”

His thoughts grew more and more disjointed. Putting Ford and Ma out of his mind was impossible, but the pain grew less sharp, like he was sinking into the sea. He could hear Mabel’s sleepy breathing like waves and wind, and if he turned his head a bit, he could hear her heartbeat.

Mabel always made a big deal out of keeping promises, and she was probably the most (aggressively, bordering on annoyingly) helpful persons in the whole world. And if Dipper, who was both smart and constantly doubting every little thing, thought Ford still cared about him, maybe he was right.

Stan decided to believe that everything would be fine, if only because it made it possible to finally go to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> First Gravity Falls piece I've actually managed to get to a finished state. How does this AU shake out before this point? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
